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Roast Gooble Dinner - Episode 071 Discussion!

Val Staples, Danielle Gelehrter, and "Pixel Dan" Eardley are back to discuss He-Man and She-Ra.

In this episode we are joined by Tim Seeley as we discuss
Part 1 of the new MOTUC The Powers of Grayskull The Legend Begins mini-comic!

MOTUC bios discussed in this show:(none)

MOTUC figures discussed in this show:none

Intro/Outro info:
(none)

Plus, fellow He-Fan josh on the forums has created this fantastic Roast Gooble Dinner podcast Appendix & Notations which contains a ton of info about the show, with all the info about the Fanart, Fansites and Collectibles of the week, along with links to sites and user profiles of interest, and also details on how to contact the show with your feedback. Be sure to check that out!

Another fan contribution are episode wallpapers and backgrounds, created by Matt Tyree also know as Tyree on the forums. Matt is commercial illustrator who you can find out more about at www.tyreeonline.com

Also, don't forget the Roast Gooble Dinner iPhone App, which is great for organizing and downloading current and past episodes. Click here to get yours today!

So pull up your chair and fill up your plate! It's time to chow down on a tasty serving of fandom here on He-Man.org's Roast Gooble Dinner!

I will agree... Teela is not acting like herself when she and He-Man are talking, and his line about her hair seemed so out of place. All I could figure when I read it was that she's got PTSD from her father turning into a Snake Man and finding her birthmother, who then dies right after throwing a huge responsibility on her. And He-Man is just feeling all kinds of awkward because of all of this.

Hmmm. *g* Were the 10 hours of prefacing the discussion of the comics with explanations on your position and constant apologizing necessary?

I can understand the wish, but because it was so repetitious it became boring relatively soon. I was like: Now, let's get it on!

But now to the He-Man / Sorceress scene:
I totally disagree with you. The tone you are reading the scene in seems totally off to me. Where you read coldness and boldness, I read insecurity and sadness.

Yes, people that were that close would react this way if their relationships changes that drastically. Don't you know situations like this where you become the boss of someone you worked with on equal levels for years? There's an adjustment period where it's so akward, where you have to find a way to make it work.

I thought this scene informed so much about Adam's and Teela's character. When Teela says to He-Man "Please call me the Sorceress" the art and the text together communicate such sadness and exhaustion - that's not coldness. It communicates so much character development: Teela has to find her new role. She's now "the boss" whereas before she was always following He-Man. By reminding He-Man she has to remind herself that she's the leader now, the leader she *has* to be because she was thrown into this role. Could she have done better? Of course. But in a situation like that, it wouldn't be right if they were handling it without a glitch.

And He-Man tries desperately to connect with her, he wants to connect with her on a personal level, hold on to the past, hold on to what maybe is gone. That's why he comments on her hair. You would only comment on something like this if you were very close to someone on a very personal level. It illustrates the struggle so awfully well.

The scene shows how both struggle with the new situation. Of course they don't know how to act in this situation. It makes them more human than most sources have ever portrayed them. Their relationship has fundamentally changed, they have to find out for themselves what that means.

Nice comic review. :-) I would like to comment on the He-man recognising the Snakemen and attacking them though. In the old comic He-man indeed didn't know if they were actually the evil Snakemen but in this "new" canon he probably would know. Looking at all the bio's so far the MYP canon had the most influence continuity wise. Going by this logic it stands to reason that Adam had the flashback dream of King Grayskull prior to his travel through time. So he should know these guys were the Snakemen right?

I will agree... Teela is not acting like herself when she and He-Man are talking, and his line about her hair seemed so out of place. All I could figure when I read it was that she's got PTSD from her father turning into a Snake Man and finding her birthmother, who then dies right after throwing a huge responsibility on her. And He-Man is just feeling all kinds of awkward because of all of this.

Originally Posted by Irian

But now to the He-Man / Sorceress scene:
I totally disagree with you. The tone you are reading the scene in seems totally off to me. Where you read coldness and boldness, I read insecurity and sadness.

Yes, people that were that close would react this way if their relationships changes that drastically. Don't you know situations like this where you become the boss of someone you worked with on equal levels for years? There's an adjustment period where it's so akward, where you have to find a way to make it work.

I thought this scene informed so much about Adam's and Teela's character. When Teela says to He-Man "Please call me the Sorceress" the art and the text together communicate such sadness and exhaustion - that's not coldness. It communicates so much character development: Teela has to find her new role. She's now "the boss" whereas before she was always following He-Man. By reminding He-Man she has to remind herself that she's the leader now, the leader she *has* to be because she was thrown into this role. Could she have done better? Of course. But in a situation like that, it wouldn't be right if they were handling it without a glitch.

And He-Man tries desperately to connect with her, he wants to connect with her on a personal level, hold on to the past, hold on to what maybe is gone. That's why he comments on her hair. You would only comment on something like this if you were very close to someone on a very personal level. It illustrates the struggle so awfully well.

The scene shows how both struggle with the new situation. Of course they don't know how to act in this situation. It makes them more human than most sources have ever portrayed them. Their relationship has fundamentally changed, they have to find out for themselves what that means.

To me this is a wonderfully sad love scene.

If it were a regular monthly comic or big trade paperback, I could see various plots and character development. But this is a 3 issue mini-comic to sell toys. I wish there could be more meaning to it.

I read that scene as possibly one of two things:

1) Teela has to let go of personal feelings and attachments to be the new Sorceress. While the Filmation Sorceress eventually came off like a mother, in the beginning she was just as cold as the NA and MYP Sorceresses, who were more oracle-like and aesthetic in their demeanor. When Teela told Adam to call her the Sorceress, it was probably killing her inside. Adam is the one major person from her old life who was still around, with her father and mother gone and she can't reach out to him like she really wants to. But could they convey that in a three issue mini-comic? Probably not.

2) There could be a slight possibility that Teela is angry with Adam for keeping the secret all of those years. All those times in Filmation when Teela was worried about Adam DURING A BATTLE. Tactically, it put everyone at risk. It's a shame that we couldn't see how that all played out.

He-Man's comment about her hair seemed like a failed ice-breaker.

LMAO! This reminds me of a "no-prize" from old school Marvel Comics. A "no prize" is where hardcore Marvel fans try to explain away obvious mistakes in art or writing as actual purposeful things.

I felt you guys were very over critical of this mini comic and that a most of your criticisms could be equally applied to the vintage mini-comics. You even point out yourselves the limitations of the format so you can't judge it to the standards of a regular comic. Personally I'm very pleased with it and only have a few minor nit picks. I think the Teela's Sorceress oufit looks terrible, she looks more like a Jedi, they should have used the NA or 200x Sorceress outfit for her. I agree He-Man's comment to her about her hair is cringe worthy, not to mention he can't really even see her hair under the hooded cloak, but I don't really have problem with the rest of the scene. Like Irian and others point out the relationship between Adam/HM and Teela has now changed a lot, they're not going conversing and joking around like they're still training in the palace grounds. Teela's life has been through some huge changes lately, she's had this huge responsibility thrown upon her, she literally has the weight of the universes on her shoulders, she's in her late teens/early twenties and basically had to grow up.

I did the exact same thing that Dan did and was like how the hell did Skeletor get into Grayskull, someone in the mini-comic talkback tread had to actually point out to me that the last two panels on that page had moved to Central Tower.

I do agree that its a bit odd that a gun just sprouted out of the bionotops's head though

First off a huge thank you to Tim for going before the firing squad. Never an easy thing to do. Some really awesome points were brought up and I want to quickly clarify a few things.

Absolutely first and foremost this comic is there to sell toys. That's why we sneak in characters like Miro into the comic, so that we can help one day work on getting him into the line. Tim did a FANTASTIC job translating Mattel's marketing objectives and storyline guidelines into a three issue series with 8 pages each.

Due to the extremely small number of page we had to work with, a lot of stuff had to wind up on the cutting room floor. But now that all three issues are printed and done (and I've read them together), a nice story unfolds with a lot of things brought up in issue 1 really paying off in issue 3 (first issues are always set up, no one is pretending issue 1 is not exposition overboard!).

Maximizing our panels aside, a few thoughts:

1: Teela's dialogue and persona was 100% intentional. The set up paragraph on the inside front cover explains some time has past since the end of the 200X series. Teela has been though a lot. Her more "cold" persona was a way of communicating this. The Masters are on the run, Randor has been missing (up until the first page of the story) the Sorceress is gone and MAA has been taken in by the Snake Men. We're coming into the story when our heroes are at the bottom of their luck. Tragedy and tragedy has occurred recently. Her dialogue is a reflection of this.

2: Yes, the spell on the sword would make it look like "a different sword" to anyone in Preternia. We wanted to show this with one of those Peter Parker dashed line exposures but didn't have the panel space. We assumed the reader would be clever enough to put this together on their own (actually with the limited panels we had, we wound up assuming this about a lot of thing in all three issues!).

3: Val brought up the issue of He-Man not being as knowledgeable about Preternia in the vintage comic. And yes this is true. But in this new retelling, we wanted to take into account the fact that it is established Grayskull has one of the greatest libraries in the universe. It made sense they would have many records of Preternia and He-Man would study up before his mission.

4: I wasn't sure what you meant by "the floating cosmic key". The Sorceress is clearly holding the key when she is opening the portal in front of Central Tower's mouth. Unless you are talking about page 3 panel 2. That is not the key. The is Skeletor's damaged and broken Dragon Blaster armor that he is throwing off (he is wearing it on page 2, panel 5. You can see the chain hanging down. Another detail that we didn't have the full panel space to really show off)

Overall everyone on the MOTUC team couldn't be more excited for these mini comics. With the limited budget we had, we got some amazing talent to work on these and while individually I would agree they each leave a bit of a "wanting more" when all three are read together a nice tale unfolds! This is our 30th gift to the fans!

Thanks again Tim for taking the time to give a little background. It was great to hear!

The is Skeletor's damaged and broken Dragon Blaster armor that he is throwing off (he is wearing it on page 2, panel 5. You can see the chain hanging down. Another detail that we didn't have the full panel space to really show off)

Well, I guess old Skelly will have to find some "new armor" at the end of book 3 then....perhaps something space themed